Read the passage carefully. Select the answer from the four alternatives given…
2024
Read the passage carefully. Select the answer from the four alternatives given below each question.
The human body can tolerate only a small range of temperature, especially when the person is engaged in vigorous activity. Heat reactions usually occur when large amounts of water and/or salt are lost through excessive sweating following strenuous exercise. When the body becomes overheated and can not eliminate this excess heat, heat exhaustion and heat stroke are possible.
Heat exhaustion is generally characterised by clammy skin, fatigue, nausea, dizziness, profuse perspiration, and sometimes fainting, resulting from an inadequate intake of water and the loss of fluids. First aid treatment for this condition includes having the victim lie down, raising the feet 8 to 12 inches, applying cool, wet cloths to the skin, and giving the victims sips of salt water over a 1-hour period.
Heat stroke is much more serious; it is an immediate life-threatening situation. The characteristics of heat stroke are a high body temperature (which may reach 106° F or more); a rapid pulse; hot and dry skin; and a blocked sweating mechanism, victims of this condition may be unconscious, and first-aid measures should be directed at quickly cooling the body. The victim should be placed in a tub of cold water or repeatedly sponged with cool water until his or her temperature is sufficiently lowered.
Question: The most immediate concern of a person tending to a victim of heat stroke should be
- A.
get salt into the victim's body
- B.
raise the victim's feet
- C.
lower the victim's pulse
- D.
lower the victim's temperature
Attempted by 4 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
Concept
In a reading-comprehension question, the correct option is the one the passage itself supports — not what sounds medically reasonable in general. So first locate where the passage talks about the exact situation in the stem (here: first aid for heat stroke) and let that text decide the priority.
Applying it to this passage
The passage treats heat stroke as the serious case: it calls it "an immediate life-threatening situation" and lists a high body temperature that "may reach 106° F or more" together with a blocked sweating mechanism. Crucially, it states that for heat stroke "first-aid measures should be directed at quickly cooling the body," and that the victim should be cooled "until his or her temperature is sufficiently lowered."
So the passage names cooling the body — i.e. bringing the dangerously high temperature down — as the immediate priority. That matches the option "lower the victim's temperature."
Why the other options do not fit
"get salt into the victim's body": giving sips of salt water is the passage's first aid for heat EXHAUSTION (loss of water and salt), a different and less urgent condition; the passage never assigns it to heat stroke.
"raise the victim's feet": raising the feet 8 to 12 inches is again part of the heat-exhaustion treatment in the passage, not the heat-stroke priority.
"lower the victim's pulse": a rapid pulse is only listed as a symptom/characteristic of heat stroke; the passage never directs the rescuer to act on the pulse itself, so it is a description, not the stated first-aid goal.
Cross-check
The only action the passage explicitly prescribes for heat stroke is rapid cooling, and it ends by tying success to the temperature being "sufficiently lowered" — confirming the intended answer.